


The Ballad of Baron Samedi

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drama, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-16
Updated: 2006-04-16
Packaged: 2019-01-19 20:42:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12417774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: Sent to New Orleans under the commission of the Dark Lord, Blaise Zabini learns that the preconceived notions of the family he has grown up with are a far cry from the truth. Old Magic survives in the city, in the rituals and through the fusion of tradition and faith. It is a pity that no one told our dear ...





	The Ballad of Baron Samedi

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

**Title:** The Ballad of Baron Samedi  
 **Author:** Lucia de’Medici  
 **Summary:** Sent to New Orleans under the commission of the Dark Lord, Blaise Zabini learns that the preconceived notions of the family he has grown up with are a far cry from the truth. Old Magic survives in the city, in the rituals and through the fusion of tradition and faith. It is a pity that no one told our dear Mr. Zabini that Café du Monde does not serve gumbo to simply anyone.  
 **Characters:** Blaise Zabini (canon), Marie Laveau (an Aunt and New Orleans’s notorious Voodoo Queen), Marcel (a cousin), and a surprise guest  
 **Location:** New Orleans, LA  
 **Rating:** R  
 **Warnings:** Dark themes and a smear of gore  
 **Author’s Notes:** I wanted to preface this piece by saying that this was started prior to Hurricane Katrina. Though the bulk of it was written recently, this is the New Orleans I remember and love from 2003. Blaise says a couple of things that could be misconstrued (nature versus man, in particular), and I needed to point out that his views are most definitely not reflective of my own, nor am I making any statements regarding the devastation left in Katrina’s wake. I’ve added a postscript regarding the the subtler inclusions that might not be obvious to those who’ve never visited the city or who aren’t familiar with Voodoo and New Orleans hoodoo. Having said that, I hope you enjoy it. There are pictures [here](http://pics.livejournal.com/luciademedici/gallery/0000xwbs) for visual stimuli. Lastly, I extend many thanks to my beta, Lisa725, for beating my sentence structure into submission.

**\---**  
The Ballad of Baron Samedi  
\---

The crooked old woman shuffled her way along Sixth Street, pausing only at the corner of Washington to pat down her voluminous skirts and extract a small gourd rattle. She sang nasally, emitting brief whistles from the spots in her mouth where the teeth had long since rotted and fallen out. 

“ _Iba a se esu!_ ”� she crowed to the still night air. Overhead the archaic oak trees remained motionless and loping. The humidity was thick in the night air, but it didn’t bother the old Queen. Three centuries taught you how to deal with the bayou heat.

“ _Iba a se esu!_ ”� she sang, her voice cracking, but powerful despite her age. The _Géudé_ wouldn’t deny her; she’d served him far too long.

“ _Iba a se esu!_ ”�

Pausing before the gates, the old crone straightened her bowed stance as best she could – leaning heavily on her gnarled walking stick with her equally arthritis-ravaged fist. 

“ _Ase!_ ”� she howled at the wrought iron. The words “Lafayette No. 1”� loomed starkly against the backdrop of a clear night sky. She grinned and whistled for Marcel as she began the staccato rattling of the gourd. 

Around the corner, partially masked by the large trunk of an ancient oak that cracked the sidewalks with its roots, the quadroon boy poked his head out nervously. He didn’t like the cemetery at night; in fact, the ritual scared him witless. The fact that the Loa had claimed him promptly after his birth and had settled the first nine years of his devotions to the Baron didn’t ease him in the slightest. 

It was honourable, of course. Bearing that in mind, Marcel quailed under the gaze of the mambo and scuttled into plain view with a grandiose bow. 

“Oooh, boy-o! _Ma chÃ¨re,_ _Viens vite vite_ – there’s no time tonight _p’tit_. No time to make le Baron wait,”� she cackled, beckoning the boy forward with a knotted finger.

“ _’Scuse_ , Maman,”� he mumbled sheepishly, extracting a coconut, a thick cigar, and a full bottle of rum for the woman. 

“ _’Scuse,_ Baron!”� she tutted and swatted at him roughly as soon as he was close enough. 

Marcel flinched, but he took the hearty smack to his temple without voicing complaint. 

“The vévé boy. Make le vévé and make it proper!”� she scolded, plucking the coconut from his thin fingers and wrapping it adoringly with her own.

“ _Esu Emalona,_ ”� she hummed, looking to the worn iron gates with rheumy eyes. “ _Esu Emalona._ ”� 

Marcel hunched before the mambo and pulled from his pocket a small plastic bag filled with finely ground white eggshells. It stained the pads of his fingers, tainting them with an odd calcite smell. This he ignored as he took a pinch and drew the lines of the Baron’s vévé on the aged concrete.

“ _Esu Emalona,_ ”� Marie intoned from behind him. 

Marcel dug into the sack for a larger fistful and hurried his work. 

It was nearly time.

With his knees growing stiff from squatting and Marie’s skirts brushing against his thin backside, Marcel had only a moment to register the sound of scraping iron before the mambo knocked him to the side and the coconut rolled from her grip.

It hit the pavement with a hollow crack, scattering the precise lines of the Baron’s invocatory vévé. Slowly, achingly, the old wrought iron gates of Lafayette Cemetery slipped from their padlocks and strained open, flaking bits of chipped black paint and rust as they swung wide.

Marcel had just enough time to scuttle backwards as Marie moaned and shuffled forwards, dropping her walking stick to clutch at her skirts with twisted fingers. The thick shades of the cemetery parted and invited her in.

“ _Ã‰coute, Baron Samedi. Je vous en prie,_ ”� she groaned, her eyes rolling to white. 

Marcel registered the twisting, scuttling sounds, the scraping of marble against marble. Too frightened to look, he inched towards the crumbling stucco wall barring the cemetery from the streets of New Orleans’s Garden District.

Marie continued to warble, but her misshapen form was rapidly obscured by the shadows cast from the overhanging trees. 

Before the old gateway closed and Marcel began to run, the quadroon boy thought he saw, for just a moment, a half-blackened face form from the depths of the shadows – a mask of hollowed eyes and grinning, mottled teeth beneath a top hat – as the Baron emerged to greet his envoy.

\---

The Rue Bourbon, to Blaise Zabini, never lost its Muggle stench.

Sitting beneath the awning at the Café du Monde, he kept one hand partially covering his chicory coffee, warming his palm with the condensation made by the cup’s rising steam, and the other resting beneath the lapel of his linen jacket. 

Before him on the table sat a half-eaten meal: a seafood gumbo that had steadily grown colder as his company had watched him spooning it into his mouth with practiced patience.

He’d lost all taste for the bony fish and okra quickly under the intent gaze of his cousin’s grubby face.

In the distance, down Rue St. Ann, Blaise appraised the bustle of Bourbon Street with narrowed eyes. At this time of the evening, it would be crowded; the stench would be worse than ever as the tourists and recently freed Tulane students poured into the heart of the Quarter for a Saturday evening’s revel.

No matter how many times he returned to England after having visited this particular part of the United States, after scrubbing and disinfecting and going as far as blasting his sinus cavity with as many freshening charms that he could think of, the smell always lingered.

It was an odd blend of human sweat, fermented beer, and dried vomit layered over the heady, waterlogged cypress and mud stink of the swamp the city was built on.

He reviled it.

“Founded by criminals and whores,”� he murmured to Marcel irritably. 

The child shifted in his seat, keeping his hands trapped firmly beneath his skinny bottom. He did not make eye contact, choosing instead to keep his eyes fixed on flickering candle on the small table at which they sat.

“Tell me again, Marcel,”� Blaise murmured, rotating his cup absently in its saucer. “Why can you not fetch my Aunt as I’d asked you?”�

His cousin, a boy with a toffee complexion and curiously light hair for his breeding, sniffed audibly. Now that Blaise had finished with his meagre supper, it appeared that Marcel could not face his direct scrutiny.

If there was one thing Blaise could bear less than the stink of the city, it was the sight of a child determined not to cry though his chin crinkled unbecomingly and his eyes shone with fresh tears.

Blaise bit his tongue, determined not to hex the brat just yet, although he was sorely tempted to do so.

“Marcel,”� he tried again, controlling the pitch of his voice determinedly. “You are surely aware that my employer does not look favourably on squandered time.”�

“ _’Scuse, monsieur_. I — I do not know,”� he stammered, tears spilling over wan cheeks and dribbling to his chin. 

Blaise made an impatient noise and snatched the neatly folded red handkerchief jutting from his breast pocket. He threw it at the boy and leaned over the table to peer into his face.

“Do not lie to me,”� he bit out.

Marcel sniffed exuberantly and dabbed at his running nose. 

Blaise grimaced.

He’d have to burn that handkerchief.

“You will tell me where to find her, Marcel,”� he threatened in low tones. “Aunt Marie is always prepared for my visits, no matter how infrequent they may be. She is expecting me.”�

“Not this evening,”� Marcel stammered. “P-please _monsieur_ , I cannot go back there –”�

“You are putting on quite a performance, Marcel,”� he muttered dourly. “It is something I do not care for.”�

The boy looked at Blaise’s half-eaten meal and then at the blank-faced waiter who had come to collect his dishes. He did not meet Blaise’s stern appraisal.

It was high time for a different approach.

“Would you like me to show you something?”� Blaise murmured silkily, returning to his favoured method of coercion with foreign family. “In my pocket,”� he continued, “beneath my hand is a tool that civilized wizards use. It does not rely on the beat of the drum or the blood of chickens, nor does it require any barbaric human trinkets to work. I can show you what it does, Marcel. But I assure you, you will not enjoy the experience.”�

The boy froze, Blaise’s handkerchief slipping from fingers that turned icy despite the balmy heat. Blaise cocked his head to the side and watched, bemused, as the child took a shuddering breath and turned to face him with wide, stricken eyes.

The rapid rise and fall of his chest, the dilated pupils, flaring nostrils, and the quick beading of perspiration at Marcel’s hairline prompted Blaise to smile. 

The alkaline tang of fear was a marvellous thing; it masked the unpleasant perfume of the nearby canal, if only for a moment.

Blaise peered down his nose at the child and smiled beatifically. His hand rested on the butt of his wand in its holster, beneath the jacket of his crisp suit. 

Something simple would do. He closed his eyes, savouring the moment and waiting for the exact second when…

There was a scrape of iron against concrete as Marcel made to fly from his chair.

“ _Locomotor mortis_ ,”� Blaise murmured, almost serenely. 

When he opened his eyes once more, the tip of his wand cast a fading and luminous red glow beneath the table.

Marcel, his legs locked together, thrashed in his chair desperately, emitting choked whimpers as he struggled to get free.

“Did I not tell you, Marcel?”� Blaise crooned, his eyes half-lidded. “There are far worse things I can do to persuade you to stray from your barbaric custom.”� 

Marcel bucked beside him, too preoccupied with the inexplicable inoperability of his lower body to pay the slightest bit of attention. Blaise sighed and murmured with newly revived patience, “ _Legilimens_.”�

\---

Whatever temptations the Rue Bourbon held for Muggles, Blaise stoutly ignored as he stepped over the trash littering the gutters. 

He kept to the shadows beneath the overhanging wrought iron balconies that protruded jauntily over the cobbled walkways; bearing flags and earnest, thriving blooms nestled comfortably into window boxes, he moved where the shadows permitted him. Where shelter was lost to the warm cast of gaslight and the obnoxious, neon signs proclaiming the presence of Voodoo artefacts and souvenirs, he tipped his hat low over his eyes and strolled through the crowd.

No one dared brush too closely; his personal wards saw to the fact that none would scuff his expensive shoes or crease the tailored, cream-coloured Muggle disguise he wore. 

The white fedora, he guiltily admitted to himself, he rather liked – though the light suit did not replace the elegance of a well-tailored robe. 

A few feet ahead of him, jostled by the crowd, Marcel stumbled and righted himself for the fifth time that hour. The boy was far too small to be noticed, and with his filthy face and the grubby, wrinkled scraps that barely passed as clothing, no one paid him much mind.

The child would feel the residual pain of having his bare feet trod on later. For now, Blaise’s Imperius Curse kept the little beast single-mindedly plodding onwards.

Pity he could not have directed him down another, quieter, street. 

Blaise’s stomach churned uncomfortably for a moment and then settled. Even his body was protesting the longer route – or perhaps it was the gumbo. He swallowed back bile at the thought.

Apparation was out of the question. New Orleans, while it was rife with a foreign magic, was far too delicate an environment to set off by disturbing the balance created by a fusion of superstition and religion. Moreover, the abused Voodoo Botanical to which they were headed would not appreciate him suddenly appearing on their rickety stoop.

The last time he’d attempted it, they’d drenched him with Florida water and complained to his mother of his intolerable manners.

Blaise had not yet forgiven them for the parting gift, though the rash that followed him home to Somerset could hardly be considered “proper”� magic to begin with. 

It only served to fuel Blaise’s sheer loathing of the city. It was here that his ancestors diverged from their beginnings; to adapt to a land barren of the Old Ways, they created new customs that would never be as pure or as strong as _real_ wizarding traditions. From Haiti, Africa, and Santo Domingo, they were stolen and forced into slavery – their magic weakened or stomped out entirely by the Muggles who kept them.

Blaise bowed his head, forcing himself to unclench his hands, as they had curled into fists in his pockets. 

To say they had survived by exploiting what little they had was one thing; to say that they had prospered would be a boldfaced lie. Blaise could not understand why his Louisiana family suffered stubbornly with their amalgamation of blind faith and folk magic. Why had they not overtaken their captors? They were stronger; they were skilled, though they were displaced.

It pained him to think about it.

Ahead of him, his cousin stumbled, slapped to the side by yet another fat, pasty-faced Muggle gripping an oversized plastic cup brimming with alcohol.

Blaise did not blink as he muttered the trip jinx, and the man toppled backwards into a couple who were seated on a nearby terrace eating a late meal.

Slipping his wand back into his jacket, he smirked and tipped his hat as he passed the pair who were now covered in their dinner. His voice drowned by the blare of jazz assaulting the crowds from the nearby cafés, he murmured, “Good evening to you.”�

Once the Dark Lord was done with this place, things would be very different indeed.

A few feet away, Marcel stopped before the shaded doorway of a dilapidated building and remained motionless, staring forward with eyes glazed. 

Its mottled coral paint peeling and bleached by the bayou sun, the facade of the tiny establishment could be easily overlooked by passing tourists. Overhead, a weathered sign that clung stubbornly to rusted hinges proclaimed that the property once was a temple to his revered Auntie Laveau. She was thought to be long dead, her bones turning to dust in her crypt at St. Louis cemetery where offerings were laid before a hollow tomb. 

As far as Blaise knew, the old crone wouldn’t give in to death for at least another century. She enjoyed the celebrity far too much to be entirely discreet, and it was for that reason that the Dark Lord has selected her as a valuable ally. Her skills, as crude as they might be, were unrivalled. She should be honoured that at his determined prompting, the Dark Lord had entreated Blaise to negotiate with her personally.Marcel pushed at the door, disappearing into the thick must-stink and heavy hand of mouldering wood beyond.

With Blaise’s careful direction, his New Orleans family would move into the next millennia strengthened – a united front banded against the Muggle infestation that conquered them. The city, indeed the continent, would be theirs to reclaim after the war.

_He_ would teach them, and they would learn _true_ power as they had never known.

Blaise smiled to himself, taking a moment to contemplate the boons he was sure to receive upon returning to England with his cargo, and waited for the boy to return with his package.

\---

The St. Charles Streetcar ground and clattered to a halt, old iron rattling against old iron in the midst of an avenue where grasses grew between the fissures in the pavement. The air inside the car, as it settled, carried with it the heady bouquet and regal splendour of the Garden District’s nocturnal perfume.

Blaise slid from the worn wooden bench before the thick scent of bougainvillea and night-blooming jasmine from outside became too cloying in the already warm trolley. 

He dismounted with Marcel shuffling behind him. Beneath the boy’s arm, a shoddily wrapped parcel of crepe paper and twine let off the smell of festering meat.

Blaise grimaced, his stomach turning over at the contemplation of the parcel’s contents. No longer in possession of his handkerchief, he pressed his fist against his mouth until the nausea passed. With a sharp look at the vacant expression on Marcel’s face, he strode forwards so that his cousin and his burden were further downwind.

After a few moments and with the stench behind him, Blaise settled into an easy stroll.

“Marcel,”� he hummed, for the first time appreciating his surroundings since he’d arrived in the city. “There is a reason why I detest the squalor in which you live.”�

From behind him, Marcel did not respond, though the shuffling of bare soles dragging on the footpath was still audible.

Blaise breathed the heady aromas of the surrounding mansions; their gardens were bursting with thick, waxen leaves and their walls strong beneath the onslaught of creepers and ivy. For a moment, wished he could luxuriate longer in their stately splendour. 

“Apart from the fact that it’s despicable,”� he continued, as he strolled past the corner of Prytania and Washington, “it demonstrates that you’ve yielded to the vermin that surround you. Look around, Marcel.”�

Blaise gestured lightly to the enormous Italianate and Revival-style mansions looming on either side of him.

“Places such as these will soon belong to our kind, as they should have since the beginning. These houses were made by our people’s hands, only to be occupied by the scum that dragged them here.”�

He stepped lightly over the root of a tree, surging upwards through the sidewalk, and trailed his fingers over its enormous trunk where it jutted into his path. 

“You will learn soon, cousin,”� Blaise said, caressing the thick bark of the old oak reverently, “that nature eventually conquers the aberrations foisted upon it.”�

He paused, the back of his arms prickling despite the heat, as the crumbling perimeter wall of Lafayette No. 1 peeked between the tumbling foliage of the sheltering homes on the next block.

“Although it is far simpler sometimes if we speed things up a little,”� he hissed. His mouth curved into a small smile, and he quickened his step.

In a few short strides, Blaise stood before the entry to the cemetery. The gates remained open from when Marcel had fled in terror a few short hours ago; though now, the boy stood beside him placidly, his eyes still dull from the effects of the curse placed upon him.

Gently, Blaise slid the putrefied bundle from beneath Marcel’s arm, swatting at the flies that were beginning to hover near it. 

Blaise nudged him forwards into the gloom, using him as a shield. It never hurt to exercise caution, he reminded himself.

“Auntie?”� he called.

The moon overhead illuminated the tombs, but only just. Of the squat mausoleums, only the older, battered, whitewashed structures cast some reflection with the amber glow of the streetlights beyond the perimeter wall. Many had fallen to ruin over the years – the burial places of Civil War soldiers and wealthy aristocrats offering their pristine splendour so easily to the elements. 

Still, Blaise supposed, were the shadows not so long between the rows of leaning sanctuaries, the miniature city of the dead could recapture some of its old romance.

Pity most of the corpses here would be Muggle-brood. Or perhaps that was a boon in disguise. 

No matter, the Dark Lord was not picky when it came to those under his servitude.

“Auntie Laveau?”� he tried again. Silence returned to him, thick and impenetrable. It seemed as if even the cicadas had stilled.

Blaise pulled his wand from his pocket, loosened the twine on the package with his other hand, and motioned for Marcel to proceed.

The boy plodded forwards, stumbling where his bare toes caught on the raised slabs of a well-worn walkway. 

Around him, the sepulchres loomed, large and silent; they leaned against one another when their foundations could no longer support their bulk. They twisted in uneven rows that conferred little direction. Here and there, the stooped and pitted ornamental statuary gazed back at him forlornly, though no cherubim moved, and he recognized no face.

Blaise tugged at the cord binding the package with the tip of his wand, and the wrapping fell beneath his feet. He didn’t dare appraise the gruesome offering, though, as his stomach protested again, he reminded himself that it was _just_ flesh. 

It couldn’t be any worse than the arrangement he’d come here for, he reprimanded himself sternly. But still, it _was_ repulsive. 

As he made his slow course through the places where light still showed the irregularities of the path, Blaise resolved to clutch it behind his back and out of sight until need be.

Hopefully, that wouldn’t be for much longer. 

“Marcel,”� Blaise hissed, straining his eyes as the boy ducked into the narrow passage between two tombs and out of sight. Blaise willed him to stop, but it was as if some unseen presence had wrested control over the child’s mind. It pushed against him, and he gasped. When he reached the small, darkened space, Marcel was gone.

Overhead, the thin sliver of the moon dimmed as a wan cloud lingered over its face, and Blaise found himself steeped in a deep, blue-tinged pitch.

“Shit,”� he muttered, clutching at the offering a little tighter. It squelched unpleasantly beneath his fingers.

In the darkness, just beyond his peripheral vision, something shifted.

“Marcel!”� he tried to snap, and he found that his voice was shamefully hoarse.

His skin prickled, unaccustomed to the sensation of slow-moving fear that had yet to descend fully. He could not deny the wheeze to his quickening breath, nor the thrum in his ears as his heart rate escalated.

It was then that he smelled it: the thick scent of freshly turned, loam-tinged earth, sopped through with alcohol, and tobacco smoke, and something else ... an odour that smacked of rotten eggs. Saltpetre. 

Slow and graceless, it unfurled around him, and he coughed as his eyes began to tear.

“ _Lumos,_ ”� he croaked, shutting his eyes momentarily against the flare of light.

Around him, the cemetery was as still as ever, though the air seemed thicker somehow, heavier almost. The light shed from his wand as he swung his arm in an arc cast long shadows where it wouldn’t reach – behind the tombs, in the small crevices, and up into the twining branches that hung low over the walls.

It made the gathering darkness darker and the faces of the eroded crypts gleam with ghastly iridescence.

“Aunt Marie?”� he tried again. 

A thick, guttural chuckle returned to him, seemingly from everywhere, and for the first time, Blaise considered turning heel and bolting from the cemetery.

“ _Viens_ , child, come and see.”� 

It was a bare whisper, a low rumble against the back of his neck, and Blaise ducked, staggering forwards. He spun around, aware of the fine sheen of perspiration gathering at his temples, and looked around anxiously.

The path was clear; the cemetery was deserted, though the scent of something stale and fermented lingered, rum soaked and heavy, in a cloud that settled around him and pressed him backwards. 

He shifted the putrid burden in his other hand, bringing it closer. It belched wetly beneath his fingers where he gripped it – leaving a thick, sticky smear against his trouser legs. 

Something twisted unpleasantly in his stomach, sending a searing flare of pain into his intestines.

“ _Pas de choix_ , child,”� the voice rumbled, from his left side this time, with laughter apparent beneath its breath. “Come and see your Auntie.”�

Blaise shuddered and staggered around the corner. The path broadened, revealing another longer stretch of derelict mausoleums. He quickened his pace, wincing at the fresh ripple in his gut, and looked over his shoulder into the settling darkness behind him. 

The tombs here were older and more dilapidated, some with their marbled doors missing. These showed him the thicker shadows congealed within and stretched their maws wide for him invitingly, though Blaise did not deign to crawl into one to hide.

He did not stop to think of their former occupants, those he had come here for: the Dark Lord’s decomposing army in waiting.

Blaise reprimanded himself sternly for his foolishness.

This local hoodoo nonsense was nothing like the threat of retribution he faced if he returned to England empty handed. It was not a difficult task, this negotiation. At least, it shouldn’t be.

Superstitious idiocy, he berated himself. Plebeian parlour tricks.

“Auntie,”� he called, forcing his timbre to remain even. “This sort of negligence towards your guests is unheard of. I’ll be telling mother immediately upon my return home, as well as…”� he swallowed. 

“This boy talk like ’e _sauver_ much, eh _chérie_? Maybe I cut out ’is tongue and ’e listen. Grow some smart between ’is ears.”� 

Blaise stopped, doubling over as his stomach clenched; a cold beading of sweat gathered at the back of his neck, down his back, and behind his knees. He staggered around to face the owner of the voice while coughing on bile.

In the farthest corner, squatting on the steps of a crumbling crypt and framed by two urn-shaped pilasters, the old woman deposited a half-emptied bottle of rum between her spread feet and chuckled. 

“Marie?”� Blaise choked, unable and unwilling to move any closer.

“She is ’ere. She think you foolish, _bon_ _homme_. She ask, ‘Where are your manners?’”�

Blaise swallowed, his tongue suddenly thick in his mouth. His vision clotted with black spots, and he forced himself to breathe evenly through his mouth. 

The beam of light from his wand spluttered, and with a wave of her hand, Marie snubbed out the glow. The cemetery descended to darkness once again.

“ _Lumos_ ,”� Blaise croaked again. “ _Lumos!_ ”� he cried, a trace of hysteria now plainly evident as his heart leapt into his throat. 

“Latin is no good; too old for this new world. But I –”�

Blaise strained his eyes, forcing them to adjust to the darkness. The figure of Marie Laveau rose, bringing with her the crackling scent of sulphur and stale tobacco. Something was clearly wrong – she stood too tall, too straight. 

“I am both young and old, and I ’ave many tricks.”�

Overhead, the moon emerged again, and Blaise saw clearly the recognizable, café au lait complexion of the Voodoo Queen. Her shawls had been discarded in favour of a jaunty top hat, and languidly, she chewed on the end of a thick cigar. 

When she smiled, Blaise bit back a stab of revulsion as the folds on her face shifted and stretched and for a moment, something purely skeletal grinned back at him.

“Do you not remember _le Guédé_ as well?”� it murmured, its deep-set eyes veiled by the shadows and causing the face to look more like a grinning skull than ever. It was truly not Marie, though she was still there – below the surface and deep inside. Marie was a vessel for the Loa; the _Guédé_ spoke through her mouth and saw through her eyes, riding her like a beast of burden. Worse, she had doubtlessly invited it in. Damn Marcel for not staying longer before finding him at the Café du Monde – his memories had not shown Blaise this much.

“I beg your pardon, Baron,”� he croaked, returning to himself. “I did not forget. Your horse, I-I came to speak with your horse,”� he said with as much forced politeness as he could.

“It good that you tell me this, _bon homme_.”� The Guédégestured for him to draw closer. Blaise remained rooted to the spot. “Otherwise you would ’ave more problem than you do now, _oui, mon gars_?”�

“Indigestion,”� Blaise bit out, unable to ignore the churn in his belly. “My apologies. It is no problem.”�

Blaise knew it was wrong the instant he spat the words out; knew it was wrong in the amused gleam of the Baron’s eyes – somehow, it drew him closer though he strained against it.

“My ’orse, as you can see, is busy _au moment_. Besides, Marie, she call on me to tell you something. Marie, she know you don’t listen. She know you forget too easy. She think this is _le bon choix.”�_

 

“Sir,”� Blaise ground out through gritted teeth. “I assure you that my memory is quite intact. But if it pleases you, I would endeavour to plead my case to you both. My aunt and I, we had an arrangement…”�

“This is not true.”� The _Guédé_ grinned. “You ’ave imposed yourself. She say you come here without thinking, without respect. I think she is right.”� The Loa rolled the cigar between its fingers, unfettered now by human complains like Marie’s arthritic joints. 

Blaise realized he was sweating. The moisture pooled at the base of his spine and beneath his belt. It soaked his shirt and was undoubtedly going to ruin his suit. 

The Baron puffed on Marie’s offering of tobacco, wrapping its lips around the cigar and tonguing it almost lasciviously.

Damnit all, Blaise thought as his stomach contracted again unpleasantly. His offering was a disagreeable weight behind his back. It made his arm sore to slouch in this position of humility while clutching at it.

“I apologize, Baron,”� he rasped. “But you have been misinformed. I have come here by order of the Dark Lord.”�

The _Guédé_ snorted, choosing to turn his back and swagger back to his bottle of rum.

“He will not take no for an answer, Baron,”� Blaise continued through clenched jaw. “To refuse him would be tantamount to utter annihilation. He’ll wipe this continent from the map, and along with it, your devotees and your worship.”�

“Not that it would bother you much, eh?”� The _Guédé_ sneered, settling himself back against the side of the crypt. “You come, you take, and you go, is this right?”�

Blaise gasped as his legs began to shake. His limbs were slowly growing numb, and he teetered on the spot.

“It’s my duty,”� he gasped, “to my kind.”�

“You forget your kind!”� the _Guédé_ roared, the Loa’s deep timbre broken suddenly with the crackling whistle of Marie as she struggled through. “You forget what gives you power! Instead you wave around a stick making silly noises. You come to take things that do not belong to you! They are _mine!_ ”�

Blaise looked up to see the pair of them; the Loa and its horse, his Aunt, as they fought for dominance in one body. Its face shifted again, the eyes clearing for a moment to flash a rheumy brown and the weathered mouth twisted in anger.

“ _Chére_ , you are foolish,”� it hissed with the voice of his Aunt. They staggered towards him, gnarled hands outstretched as they dropped the rum. The bottle cracked as it hit the slabs of the walkway, spilling its dark contents in the _Guédé_ ’s path though it lurched through it. “Look around you, boy-o. Look for what you have come for!”�

Blaise stumbled backwards, his arms flying out before him to stave the Loa off. 

The offering caught its eye, and just as quickly as Marie had emerged, she was gone – overridden by the Baron once again as it reached to grasp Blaise’s arm. With a grin, it wrapped its fingers around the severed goat’s foot and laughed, letting Blaise fall backwards to the ground as it drew the offering to itself.

“This is clever.”� The Baron chuckled, brandishing the goat’s foot. He hefted the limb at him, leaving patched streaks of dark wetness against his sleeve. “You shake my ’and, I take your arm. An offering to the Guardian of the Dead is good, _bon homme._ But not for those ’oo ’ave no respect for the _Guédé_ ; you must make a bigger sacrifice to please me now.”�

Blaise twisted on the ground, breathing hard as his stomach convulsed and a leaden weight settled in his chest. His heart was pounding fit to burst.

“What have you done to me? What magic is this?”� he hissed. “Stop it this instant!”� he said moaning. His legs would not cooperate – they thrashed on the ground before him as he tried to drag himself down the path with his hands.

“This is the magic you ’ave forgotten, ignored, and abused.”� The Baron grinned. “This is the magic of _my_ people. _Elegba_ does not want you, nor do I, but Marie put your body to good use.”�

“Impossible,”� he hissed in return. “I have come here to harvest –”�

“To steal the dead of the city, _my_ dead, _my_ people; you wish to make _zombi_.”�

“Inferius!”� Blaise bit out, shaking his head to clear his clouded vision. “The Dark Lord needs inferi for his army.”� He winced, his limbs shuddering. “Too many upturned local graves appear suspicious. The Muggles cannot know yet; they must not suspect –”�

“You should ’ave stayed ’ome for this, _mon gars_.”� The Baron chuckled bitterly. 

“You are the guardian of the dead! I was to appeal to your intercessor on my Lord’s behalf –”�

“Marie ’as told me this.”� The Guédé hummed thoughtfully, pulling a fresh cigar from beneath his hat and lighting it with the snap of its fingers. “She say you demand and you threaten, behaving like a common bully. Yet you do not _recherc_ _hé_. _Regard, bon homme_. Look to the resting places of those you ’ave come for.”�

Blaise lifted his arm with some effort, preparing to curse the thing before him. Instead, the Baron flicked his wrist, as if to knock the ash from his cigar, and Blaise’s wand flew from his hand. It clattered against the facade of mausoleum to his left, cracking down the center easily.

“What are you talking about?”� Blaise said, his words slurred. His tongue had grown thick in his mouth, and with acute horror he realized he was drooling.

He looked frantically for the pieces of his wand, searching the steps of the crypt with eyes that were barely focused. His vision doubled, and it was a few moments before he realized that the mausoleum’s door was being moved to the side.

“What…?”� he tried. 

“Do you see anything inside?”� the Baron murmured bemusedly. “ _Non?_ It is because there are no bodies here for you to take.”�

“Im-impossible!”� he stammered, sagging backwards.

“ _Non mon gars_ ,”� the Baron chuckled. “There is a reason why in this city my people put their dead into the tombs. The Legba – the sun – makes these crypts into furnaces.”�

Blaise gurgled for a moment, making a conscious effort to form the words with his swollen mouth.

“ _Blaise_ ,”� the Loa interrupted, a sly smile stretching its maw wide over the bones of its face, “how was your dinner this evening?”�

Blaise froze, hyper aware of his spasming stomach, the electric numbness that spread throughout his legs and at his shoulders as it crept towards his fingers. 

“Wh-what h-have you done t-to me?”� he managed, trying desperately not to writhe before the Baron, and failing. He was beginning to find it much more difficult to keep his head raised.

The pain was excruciating.

The _Guédé_ grinned and lifted his arm to beckon to someone from his left. After a moment, Marcel moved from behind a crypt. He clung to the structure and stared at Blaise with huge, terrified eyes.

“Marcel is learning the old ways,”� the Baron murmured. “From Haiti, from Africa, and now, from my city; Marie teaches him his first lesson tonight. It is an old recipe, _oui_ Marcel?”�

The boy stared between them, unsure what to make of Blaise sprawled on the ground. He nodded fretfully and pressed his back to the facade of the mausoleum.

“’E worries still!”� the Baron chortled. “ _Regard_ , Marcel. This is what the poison of pufferfish does to a man. First, it twists the intestines causing the _estomach_ a little upset. Then, the poison penetrates the blood. It makes quick work of a man, paralyzing the legs and arms and clouding the head.”� Aside, the Baron added to Blaise almost conversationally, “’E arranged for a special soup for you, you see, _mon gars_. They do not serve gumbo to simply anyone at the Café du Monde, unless Marie asks for it specially.”�

Blaise gurgled, his tongue lolling in his mouth. 

His head flopped to the side listlessly, and pleadingly, he emitted a strangled, plaintive cry in the direction of his cousin. 

Marcel turned away, his small Adam’s apple working fiercely.

“You have done well, child,”� the Baron murmured, moving to stand over Blaise and inspecting his devotees’ handiwork. “I will remember this.”� The _Guédé_ nodded gravely. “Marie returns as I depart. You may finish your work, _ma chére_.”� 

Blaise struggled, mentally willing his limbs to move, to thrash, to give some sign that there was hope yet. Tears that he could not blink away welled in his eyes, and so he stared upwards, watching as the Marcel crept over to him and kneeled by his side.

He managed a low, wet gurgle of protest, but even now his lips had grown frightfully numb.

He did not even feel the pinch of the needle, nor the drag of the thick, black thread as Marcel began sewing his lips together with trembling hands.

The last thing Blaise saw, before his eyelids were closed and stitched over, was the dark, trembling arches of the trees overhead. They criss-crossed the blue-black night sky, unchallenged and sentinel.

\---

“Marcel, help me now – my bones, they ache.”�

Marie drew the boy close to her with weakened fingers. These she rested on his shoulders as she guided him through the cemetery before her.

Overhead, the midday sun cast its scornful heat over the ruins of the crypts. The marble remained cool beneath her dry touch, but the places where the brick had been exposed and the wooden slats nailed across the marker to reinforce the mausoleum’s door were warmed by its kiss.

“Auntie?”� he looked up at her with large eyes, a sparkle of deep reverence tinged with the barest hint of righteous fear in their depths.

She nodded to him, smiling her crooked grin as she grasped his chin with dry fingers that seared more than ever after the past night’s activities.

“Must we take it out so soon?”� he asked, the barest tremble in his sotto voice.

She appraised him, pursing her thin mouth though it strained her weathered face to do so. 

“Tonight,”� she murmured, narrowing her eyes at the mausoleum. “If we are to leave it inside any longer, the sun will cook its flesh.”�

Marcel shuddered beneath her hand.

She whispered to him, “He was a stupid boy, but you, _ma chére_ , you know why our _cimitiÃ¨res_ are above ground, _oui_? You are smarter than him?”� 

He nodded emphatically, cringing away from the sepulchre and its new inhabitant within. The marked body, marred by thick x’s of thread over the eyes and mouth, and laid out in a cream coloured suit within, required at least twenty four hours of burial to make it a real _zombi_. 

That was tradition.

“It is,”� she said quietly, reaching out to trace the named carved into the marker, “like an oven. The body goes in, but it does not come out. Only ash and dust are left. What do they call this today, Marcel?”�

He shook his head with a wince, uncomfortable still that he had somehow managed to play a part in this entire ritual.

She swatted him upside the head with a knotted hand.

“Cr-cremation,”� he stammered, blinking away his tears fiercely.

“ _Oui chere_ ,”� she whispered. “Remember this; nature cares for her children just like _le Baron_ cares for his.”�

_-fin-_

 

**Post Script:**

**The obvious things for those who are familiar and** **not so familiar:**

 

**Café du Monde** **:** does not serve gumbo. They specialize in beignets, which are a type of donut. Definitely no gumbo though – I was hoping that’d be a subtle warning bell. It’s one thing to get mercury poisoning, and it’s another to eat pufferfish that’s been cooked into your soup. 

**Pufferfish** (blowfish), also known as _fugu_ in Japan, is 95% poisonous. In Haitian voodoo, the non-sanctioned sort, zombification relies on the consumption of said nasty sushi. Combined with asphyxiation over a few hours time, especially when the “zombie”� is crammed into a coffin and buried after having consumed the poison, certain cognitive functions cease to operate as a result of both the poisoning and asphyxiation. The result, once the grave is dug up and the person released, is the reasonable facsimile of a human missing many of his or her motor functions. They walk around like a “zombie”� and are, in most cases, more than apt to do one’s bidding.

**Zombification:** falls under a practice of non-sanctioned Vodou, typically from Haitian practices of magic. “Voodoo”� is the North American spelling of the religion that has risen from the African diaspora. Hoodoo is something that is centralized in North America, and in particular, New Orleans. If anyone wants to be pointed in any particular direction regarding these topics, while researching for this story I managed to compile a substantial list of websites and a few books.

**Cemeteries:** The obvious bit about New Orleans cemeteries: Dear Blaise Zabini, were you not aware of how hot an enclosed crypt can get? It turns into a bloody furnace! New Orleans is below sea-level; accordingly, burying their dead is not an option. To remedy the corpse situation, above-ground cemeteries were built to serve as a means of providing natural cremation for the deceased. Accordingly, Voldy’s little “mission”� is a complete bust. I dabbled with the idea of running some explicit betrayal schemes along, but that can get drab quickly. I’d rather you draw your own conclusions.

**Aunt, Auntie and Mamm** **a:** These terms are capitalized, and used as honorifics. Blaise isn’t really the nephew of Marie Laveau, nor is Marcel her son. These terms signify elevated titles, and the loose links of blood between them. They shouldn’t be taken literally. Additionally, a Mambo is something like a Vodou High Priestess. 

**The Horse:** Not a literal, four-legged mammal, obviously. The horse is the individual possessed by the deity, in this case, the Baron.

**Voodoo Botanicals:** The stores where supplies for rootwork (hoodoo) can be obtained. In this case, a goat’s foot. The Baron, in addition to being the Loa of the Dead, is a bit of a trickster. It is said that when he tries to shake your hand, he’ll take your arm with him. It’s suggested that you keep a goat’s foot up your sleeve so he’ll snatch that instead.

**Esu/Eshu/Elegba/Eleggua:** The “Divine Messenger”� in the Voodoo pantheon. When Marie is opening the gates, she is meditating on the image of Elegba (the coconut), who is the Gatekeeper. You have to appeal to Elegba to commune with the other deities, in this case, Baron Samedi — the Guardian of the Dead. 

**Legba/Papa Legba/Sun References:** Legba is the Divine Father in the voodoo pantheon. He’s a solar deity.


End file.
